Of their modes of worship we know but little. Their churches, however, were divided into compartments, such as in modern times are called associations; and these were again subdivided into congregations. They generally assembled for worship in private houses or in the shade of groves. Their churches contained from two to fifteen hundred members. In times of persecution they met in small companies of six, ten, fifteen, or twenty, but never in large assemblies. Besides these churches established in their mountain fastnesses, the Waldenses, or Passagines,[29] had instituted churches in nearly all the principal cities in the south of France and the northern parts of Italy. At Modena their place of meeting was in a large manufactory, which was owned and worked by the brethren. In Milan they occupied almost an entire street, and their church is said to have contained nearly two thousand communicants. In 1056, their church in Avignon contained six hundred members, and a remnant continued, notwithstanding various reverses of fortune, so late as 1698. We are also informed that there were churches of the same order at Brescia, Ferrara, Verona, Rimini, Romandiola, and many other places. For many centuries they remained untroubled by the state; but the clergy preached and published books against them. In the eleventh and twelfth century they comprised the bulk of the inhabitants of Lombardy, and several men eminent for rank, station, and talents, belonged to their communion. It is to these that M. de la Roque refers when he says, "We have had many worthy and pious men, well instructed in science and the history of the Fathers, who were neither ashamed nor afraid to adopt both the practice and defence of the observation of the seventh day against their opponents; and, contrary to popular custom, withstood every allurement and temptation that the enlightened and persecuting ages could afford. The observation of the Sabbath remained not with them a matter of doubtful disputation, as that of the first day did with the Rev. Dr. Watts, and many others who were engaged in the controversy upon that subject." A modern French writer, in treating the history of the Gallican church, observes that it is well known that all Lombardy, the south of France, and even the mountainous district in the north of Spain, were infested by a class of heretics, who not only derided all the festivals of the church, but kept the Jewish Sabbath; "and I have heard," he continues, "that the primitive Waldenses were guilty of the same practices." From these plain facts, and a multitude of others that might be recorded, we may conclude that a large proportion of these ancient people were Sabbatarians,—were Seventh-day Baptists. In tracing their peculiarities, I have been forcibly reminded of our own denominational traits, especially at a former period.